Building a pallet yurt

Occasionally I am let off the farm for good behaviour, and so on Sunday I set off for Co.Wicklow, and Castleruddery Organic Farm to learn how to make a yurt from pallets, with ‘Rubberband’ Ray Edwards. Ray is an inventive guy, and under his excellent tuition, our group learned how to make an extremely sturdy yurt. The weather was kind, and Ray had put in a lot of work beforehand to ensure that we could get the job done in one day.

We had a look at a previous pallet yurt used as a woodland shelter, with a hazel rod roof structure, and covering made from pvc advertising sheets. The yurt roof is incredibly strong, as Ray demonstrated –

before we set to assembling ‘our’ yurt. First the walls (8) – the door section was pre-built, and rather fine.

With walls in place, and the groundsheet tacked up around the outside, we added the roof poles, definitely a job for many hands.

The poles are held in place by loops made of cut strips of car tyre, screwed down with washers. Once in place, the side wall covering was added and screwed into place.

and with the roof cover on, with printed side inwards, the view was rather fine. All in all a very satisfying day, and I’m looking forward to building a smaller version here somewhere. Find out more about Ray and his courses at http://rubberbandray.com/